


Let Your Love Grow Tall

by centrifuge



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bad Puns, Drunken Plotting With the Aid of Plush Toy Dragons Named Norbert, F/M, Friendship, Kid Fic, M/M, Non-Canon Pairing, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-29
Updated: 2011-03-29
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centrifuge/pseuds/centrifuge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco sniffed and attempted to salvage what little was left of his scowl. “If you are so socially inept that you would rather attempt some bizarre reenactment of your childhood with your arch nemesis than –“ here he fished around for examples of normal social behavior, but came up empty “—than what normal people do,” he finished somewhat lamely, “I certainly won’t stop you.”<br/>“So… normal people don’t want to hang out with you? Is that what you’re saying?”<br/>“Normal people wouldn’t even dream of hanging out with me.” Nice save, he congratulated himself. “They wouldn’t know the first thing about it.” Draco thought about pouring himself another glass of Ogden’s, but after some searching could not find his hands. “And Malfoys do not ‘hang out.’ They lounge.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Your Love Grow Tall

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to Wilde for blatantly stealing his muffins quote, and to Harry Potter fanfic readers everywhere, as this goes stonkingly AU I don't even know where in the series. I wrote this years ago, when I was actually reading HP, and I haven't seen any of the movies please do not murder me.
> 
> Also apologies for my fake British internal monologue, which is responsible for this monstrous amalgamation of shameless fluff and bad puns. It is de-aged!Harry at its most cliche while trying to veer as far away as possible from pervy. I like to think that I've succeeded.

 

            “Doesn’t seem wrong to have feelings for a child?”

            “You? Yes. However, since it seems trendy amongst parents--“ He flicked his copy of _The Prophet_ out to straighten it, “—barring yours, of course – no, I don’t think it at all strange.”

            “But I’m not his parent.” Draco tapped his wand against his mentor’s desk, impatient that he look up and give his serious attention to the matter. Snape blithely ignored him. “And he’s hardly a child anymore.”

            “Then perhaps, to your severe misfortune, you are his, hmm… _friend_.” The elder man leaned back in his chair once more, propping his boots on his desk and resuming his casual perusal of the political news, far too smug for someone who, two days ago, ate smug people for breakfast on toast. Draco Malfoy threw up his hands, storming out of the dungeon and back up the stairs to his personal quarters.

 

            _It_ would _happen to me_ , he thought as he nimbly dodged a shifting balustrade and clamored up the staircase, his cheeks heating up. _Irony has never been on my side._

 

            Three Months Previous

 

            “You!” Draco exclaimed with growing dismay, dropping his satchel to prod the recipient of his ire unceremoniously in the chest. “What are _you_ doing here?”

            “I—“

            “I’ve been taken on as Severus’ apprentice,” Draco interrupted, dangling his letter of acceptance from his perfectly-manicured fingertips. “You’ve been taken on as Filch’s replacement, I presume?”

            “Actually, I—“ Potter frowned, then bit off his comment when Snape appeared seemingly from nowhere to stare down his nose at both of them.

            “Welcome, Draco. I confess I’m somewhat surprised to see you, Potter. I did not think you would apply, given our history. But, though it pains me to say so, no one currently living is better-suited to the position than you.” How the man always managed to make Potter’s name sound like a bad taste, Draco never knew, but had always admired.

            “What position, Severus? Janitor?” Draco sneered, handed off his things to a house elf as Snape turned to walk up the steps of Hogwarts, and followed the aging Potions Master.

            “Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, actually.”

 

            “Snape is right, Draco, think about it. Potter’s been on the receiving end of all the Unforgivables and come out all right, well… mostly; he’s taken and given half the known dark curses and hexes known to wizardkind, and to date, the only living wizard to have slain a nearly-immortal Dark Lord.”

            Draco paused in mid-stride, before taking a deep breath and deciding to ignore his friend’s unreasonable claims. “And ‘la-di-da, I don’t know anything about proper wizard culture even after living amongst them for fourteen years,’ strolling up to Hogwarts in _muggle clothing_?! And he’s going to be a _teacher?_ ” Draco’s voice was rapidly approaching the range that caused aural discomfort for dogs, and Blaise flinched.

            “And his inability to dress himself to your standards nullifies his ability to fend off dark creatures, I suppose.”

            “I’ll have you know I looked fabulous when I took on those werewolves, thank you.”

            “I’d love to stay and listen to your everlasting obsession, but I’ve got to go, Draco; I’ll visit soon, promise.” Blaise turned his head, presumably to look behind him. “Hilda wants to say hi.”

            “Oh, fine, let her on.” In a few moments, Draco’s friend held up a small, wispy-haired human with a chubby face. It shrieked in what, in some circumstances, by some people, could be construed as happiness.

            “Unca’ Draco!”

            “Oh Christ,” Draco muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Hello, Hilda.”

            “Wanna kiss.”

            “Does that child know how to speak in anything above a deafening roar?” He asked Blaise, dodging to avoid said child’s sticky fingers.     




            “I could ask the same of you,” he grinned.

            “Cheeky.”

            “You like it.”

            “Tell your wife I said hello.”

            “Wanna kiss, wanna kiss, wanna kiiiii _iiiiss_...”

            “Bloody hell, fine!” Draco bent down and in a smooth swoop kissed the top of the child’s head, and it quieted to a blissful gurgle.

            “Please don’t swear in front of my daughter, Draco.”

            “Tell that to Pansy.”

            “I bleeding well heard that, you twat!” Came the faint yet unmistakably Pansy reply from beyond Blaise.

            “Right.” Draco edged away from the fireplace, toeing off his slippers. “Big day tomorrow.”

            “Goodnight, you horrible, stuck-up prat.”

            “Goodnight, you revoltingly domestic sod.”

            “SOD!” Hilda, like her mother, was frequently the holder of the last word.

            Draco allowed himself a small smile as he extinguished the fireplace, and shrugged out of his dressing gown. He had all but forgotten the cock-up waiting for him in the morning: he was bound, all but by physical restraints, to be civil with Harry Potter.

 

            The day dawned fair enough for being so completely ignominious. Draco put extra lemon in his morning tea and relished the sourness, which seemed far more an appropriate way to start his new life than his usual hot cocoa and warm cinnamon bun. No, Draco Malfoy was going to be a Potions Master one day, lord willing, and if Snape was any indication, Draco had to master the dour disposition as well. He was pleased that his apprentice’s robes were black, austere, and buttoned to the neck in a clerical collar. He laced up his boots and swept out of his room in the most intimidating fashion he could, despite the fact that the only people in the hallway were Professor Flitwick, blind as a bat, and Professor McGonagall, who looked less than impressed.

            Potter’s hair, despite (he was certain) at least one introduction to the brush and comb, remained flat on one side and upright on the other.  His case of bed head seemed pronouncedly worse than it was in his school days and – was he wearing trainers? At the teacher’s table? On the first bloody day of classes?

            Hogwarts was doomed, he decided, and Britain along with it; doomed to a future of indignity and mediocrity. Soon in London they’d be saying “hurr” instead of “yes.”

            “Hullo, Malfoy,” Potter said when he caught him staring. When Draco pretended to have not heard him, he blinked owlishly and resumed gazing into the abyss of his coffee.

            Headmistress Sinistra gave the welcoming speech, and Draco tuned her out, shredding his toast malevolently. Snape bade him pass the marmalade, and he did so, managing only out of respect for the man not to hurl it in Potter’s sleepy face. For the sake of one’s future – the future of all Britain, even -- one must be civil.

 

 

            The first few weeks passed swiftly, as the students settled into their schedules and houses. Draco had been given responsibility for presiding over the first- and second-year potions classes, a task he took to with alacrity. Thankfully, his run-ins with Potter had been few, and he reckoned that Potter had also been given the speech about being civil, because he had been – a prospect which made Draco violently dissatisfied.

            In those rare moments when Draco was honest with himself, he did rather miss their sparring, however blunt and unoriginal Potter’s rejoinders may have been. No one else in their school days had dared to (besides the Weasel, who was, if it was at all possible, even less intelligent than Potter), and now terrorizing the students lacked a certain _je ne sais quoi_ that came from bandying words with an equal.

            Which was not to say that Potter was an equal – merely that he was all Draco had to work with, in terms of arch-nemeses. But Draco’s silver tongue had been honed to a sharp edge in the years since his last stay at Hogwarts, and often cut Potter without him noticing it at all. At times he would look at Draco, and twitch a bit, and then shake his head and walk away. Potter did not know what hit him.

            Needless to say, Draco’s delight was barely concealable when the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself, three weeks into the school year.

 

            Doris Pratchett was abysmal at potion-making, and, as luck would have it, a Gryffindor. She was staring in horror at her frothing turquoise attempt at a rejuvenating  potion, no doubt wondering where she had gone wrong (dove hearts instead of kidneys, imbecilic child), when Potter came into the classroom, asking for a word with her.

            “You impede my student’s learning, Professor Potter,” Draco said, managing to spit out his name imperiously whilst hastily removing a puffskein lolly from his mouth. Potter stopped dead in his tracks, his gaze darting between the pleading look from Doris, the challenging look from Draco, and the puffskein lolly that Draco hastily tossed in a drawer.

            “I just need a moment, _Journeyman_ Malfoy, and I promise to return her to you in time to finish her potion.”

            “It’s finished, Professor,” the girl piped up. Draco glared at her, and she slid down in her seat, chewing nervously on one of her braids.

            “If it’s finished, then feel free to test it. Only then may you have your word with your head of house.”

            “Er…” She trailed off, eyeing her own potion distrustfully.

            “Perhaps someone is willing to help Miss Pratchett out? A brave soul?”

            “Oh, for Merlin’s sake, Malfoy,” Potter growled, “I haven’t the time for this.” Before Draco could stop him (had he at all wanted to), Potter had ladled out some of the potion into a goblet from Draco’s desk, sniffing the contents dubiously.

            “Nothing poisonous in here, is there?” He asked. Doris shook her head tentatively. “Right, then.” He downed it, made a face, and set the goblet in front of Draco, who promptly _evanesco_ -ed it with a grimace.

            “Come along, Dor-aaaaAAAAHHH!” Potter screamed then, and was surrounded by a cloud of purple smoke, and for the briefest of moments, Draco worried he might lose his job.  But then Potter reappeared, though much smaller and positively drowning in his robes.

            “Of all the rotten luck,” came the high, childish voice from the four-year-old body of Harry Potter.

 

            “Now, let me get this all sussed out,” Sinistra rubbed her hands vigorously over her face as she stared first at the gloating Potions Assistant and her now bite-sized Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor. “You let a Professor, your senior—“ Draco hissed at that, “—take a potion that _you knew_ had been brewed improperly?”

           “He did it before I could stop him,” Draco pointed out, smug in the knowledge that he was correct.          




            “And that the misapplied ingredients turned it from a rejuvenating potion into a …juvenating potion?”

            “Something like that, yes. It was highly unlikely that it would have any effect on him at all. I had forgotten what a common base for potions –“

            “If I may interrupt,” Potter interrupted, “I don’t very much like the thought of going through the rest of my life not being able to reach light switches. So, if at all possible, could we get to the point where you brew up an antidote, Malfoy?”

            It was difficult to take him seriously when he was trying so hard to look menacing and failing so miserably. His glasses, now far too large, slipped down his nose repeatedly, to be pushed back up again by his tiny hand. Draco snickered. Sinistra’s mouth twitched.

           “At present, I have no idea what went into Doris’ potion, and therefore, do not know whether an antidote can be brewed using the original potion’s specifications.”    




            “Then do what any wizard or witch in the known world does when they don’t know something: fetch Hermione Granger.”

 

            Granger, much to wizardkind’s general dismay, had persisted to be, throughout her adolescence and well into adult-hood, the world’s most celebrated know-it-all. She had taken up residence in an owlery high in the Caucasian Mountains, away from the incessant whinging of Ron and everyone else who merely wanted her to do their work for them. She had adopted Snape’s strategy and become a waspish spinster with a driving intent to make everyone within a twenty-metre radius feel grossly inferior.

            However, such ambitions did not deter her from pinching Potter’s baby-fat cheeks and saying, “Lord, Harry, how could your relatives be so horrid to such an adorable child?”

            “I’m not actually a child, Hermione,” said Potter, extracting himself from her rapacious fingers. “So get off.”           




            “Sorry. Anyway,” she continued, “I see your point – you do need my help. Harry – I mean, Professor Potter – may yet experience more serious side effects than being trapped in an undeveloped body for the rest of his life.”

            “I bloody well hope not,” Potter muttered as he helped himself to handfuls of Smarties from the bowl on Sinistra’s desk. Three pairs of eyes narrowed in speculation. “What?”

            “Shame on you, you’ll rot your teeth!”

            “Then I won’t be any different from any other child in Britain, will I, and – hey! Might I remind you once more that _I am not a child?_ ”

            Granger looked as though she was resisting the urge to rap Potter on the knuckles and make him put the candy back, when a look of cogitation crossed her face.

            “Do you normally eat so much chocolate, Harry?”

            “Only when I have a headache. The chocolate helps.”

 

 

            “It’s worse than I thought.” Granger put down her forceps and tapped Potter on the forehead with her wand. He winced. “Your headache is due to the fact that your brain is processing far more information than the underdevelopment of a four-year-old brain can. Every bit of knowledge you have accumulated in the past twenty-four years creates neural pathways and new neuronal relations to store and express those things. But your current mind, your whole body having returned to its four-year-old state, is working triple-time to continue processing at the rate to which you are accustomed.”

            “British English, ‘Mione,” Harry glared at her as he planted his chin in his hands.

            “Unless we find a way to reverse this transformation, you’re very quickly going to lose everything you’ve learned, memorized, seen, or done since you were four.” She paused and bit her lip. “Or your brain will explode, either one.”

            Draco listened to this and felt a bit guilty, but laughed anyway.

            “So if I die or suddenly stop hating Malfoy, you’ll know something is terribly wrong. Right. Great. I’ll just go play on the swings, then, shall I?” Potter’s bottom lip wobbled, and before anyone could move to console him, he dashed out of the room, but not before hitching up the hem of his robes, so as to stand on his toes and reach the door knob.

 

            Draco could see Potter’s flying speck as he wove through the air on his broom, circling the Quidditch pitch.

            _Stupid Potter,_ he thought to himself, feeling generally satisfied with the day’s turn of events. _Ever the center of attention, always in peril._ Did Draco want Potter to die? Not necessarily. Although it wasn’t as if he’d mourn the loss of Potter, he wasn’t the sort to wish death on anyone, except, of course, for one late Dark Lord. No, it was enough to see Potter suffer the humiliation of his current state of helplessness, and he was certain Granger would set him to rights with as little brain damage as possible. Although the thought of Potter as a drooling idiot had merit.

            A peculiar movement from the pitch caught his attention and he turned. The broom was still circling the field at an unhurried pace, completely unencumbered.

            “Oh, bollocks.” Draco had his window open and had taken a flying leap even before he remembered to summon his broom, which, though he found it to be disgustingly Gryffindorish, was quite dashing. His broom found his hand and he sped toward the pitch, sending his Patronus -- which was not so much a ferret as a polecat, honestly -- to Madame Pomfrey as he went.

            He was in one piece, such as it was, and breathing at that. Draco, not being a student of healing or medical science, figured that these were good signs. However, noting the large, glistening patch in the grass, he also noted that even a very small body can contain a rather great quantity of blood, but Potter had lost much of his. His face lacked color, and Draco swallowed. He was sure he didn’t mean for Potter to die, but – he looked at the figure at his feet – he was just a boy.

            Draco stabilized his spine before rolling him over, noting the seeping wound in his side. How he’d gotten it, Draco couldn’t guess, until he noticed a scrap of Potter’s robes dangling from a hook holding up a banner, which snapped in the stiff breeze. Potter’s light form must have allowed him to be blown off course and dragged against the hook, then, and knocked off the broom. Draco wrapped his scarf tightly around the boy’s midsection and picked him up, carrying him back to the castle even as Madame Pomfrey and the Headmistress came running toward him.

 

            Potter was having a bad dream, and Draco could tell. His eyes were moving rapidly from left to right, and he trembled, as though he desperately wanted to move, but couldn’t. Finally, his eyes flew open and he bolted upright, shouting, “Mum!” He looked around confusedly, blinking, his eyes wide.

            Draco cleared his throat, and Potter’s gaze snapped to him. “Who are you?”

            “Oh bollocks,” Draco said, for the second time in his life.

            “Nah, just playing, Malfoy.” Potter felt about for his glasses, then affixed them to his head. “I’d recognize that pinched, miserable pale face of yours anywhere.”

            “It is neither pinched nor miserable, and Malfoys, like any proper aristocratic family, always retain their healthy pallor.” Potter snorted in response. “I take it Pomfrey’s ministrations have you in working order once more?”

            “Yeah. My head hurts, but that’s nothing new. I—“ Potter’s cheeks tinged pink, and he stared down at his knees. “Thanks.”

            “For what?”

            “I wasn’t unconscious the whole time. The window – I saw you, before I…” Potter’s mouth twisted up at the corner, as if he had caught Draco in an act of – _shudder--_   heroism, and Draco felt faintly annoyed.

            “Don’t fancy you owe me a life debt or anything. If you’d given up the ghost I don’t think I’d live to see the end of weeping and gnashing of teeth, and there is only so much pathos a man can stomach.” Potter snorted. “And I wanted to spare the rest of the teaching staff the strain of picking up your classes.”

            “My classes!” Very Ickle Potter panicked. “But—“

            “Granger has taken them over for today, Merlin help your poor students.” Draco pictured a classroom full of first year Hufflepuffs, all writing at a pace that elicited smoke from their quills. He smiled, on the contingency that it was most likely the Hufflepuffs and not any of his own students, and sat in the chair opposite the bed, propping his foot on the bed frame. “Permit me to fill you in on the tragic news you missed whilst in absentia.

            “First of all, you are banned from flying. No parent in their right mind would let a child your –well, age, get on a broom – I mean, you see the consequences of doing so.           




            “Second, you are relieved of your teaching duties—“

            “What?!”

            “Not my doing, though had it gone my way—“

            “Oh sod off, Malfoy.”

            “I’m not finished. Lastly, and which pains me the most to tell you, I have also been relieved of the brunt of my duties in order to play nursemaid to you.”

            “Why the bloody hell _you,_ of all people?”

            “Because, according to Granger’s calculations, I am—“ he paused and sneered, “—what phrase did she use – ‘the least likely person to forget that you are not, in fact, a child.’”

            “But what does that matter, short of keeping me from hexing anyone?”

            “Please, you can barely wrap your chubby little hand around your wand. You’re not hexing anyone. But her theory goes that, given I am the person most capable of putting you in your proper place—“

            “And most willing, no doubt.”

            “— I should be given the task of not letting you forget who you are.”

            “Can’t I just keep a diary?”

            “How old were you when you learned to read and write, Potter?”

            “Somewhere around five or six, but – Ah, I see your point.”           




            “If Granger’s theory proves correct, you will lose the ability to do those things – as well as things like tying your shoes and other simple tasks you have picked up along the way. You are going to become a helpless little child, Potter.” In spite of himself, Draco found his voice softening as he observed the boy, fists in his blanket, staring at his lap. He knew Potter was trying very hard not to cry in front of him, and he found this unsettling. He did not want Potter to cry, though this was due mainly to the fact that he had no desire at the moment to be either overtly cruel or sympathetic, and if Potter became soppy, he would be forced to choose one or the other.

            “My job, then,” he began again briskly, and crossed the room, causing Potter to look up and follow him with his eyes, “is to transfer your memories to a Pensieve, in order to preserve them against your neural degradation, in the event that Granger manages to devise a way to restore you to your former self. “

            “I see.”

            “Then you are to become my ward for the duration of your present state.”

            “And I won’t remember you at all, will I? Or anyone here, for that matter.”

            “When you view your Pensieved memories, you will, for a time. It’s as yet unclear how long that period will last; hence, the need to preserve them as soon as possible.”

            Potter nodded. “When do we begin?”

            “Meet me in Sinistra’s office in about an hour. Can you walk?”

            “Think so, yeah.”

            Draco gave him a curt nod and turned to leave, greatly alarmed by the ease with which he was able to maintain civility with Potter, and severely disappointed in himself for his inability to exploit his enemy’s current emotional weakness.

 

            “…And now I’m saddled with the brat until Mudblood can reset him to his usual horrid self.”

            “Clearly, you are suffering far more than he.”

            Draco stopped pacing to give Blaise an incredulous look. “Surely you don’t _sympathize_ with Potter,” he said slowly, narrowing his eyes at the poorly-concealed reproach in his friend’s face.

            “Be human, Draco; I know you’ve got a heart in there somewhere. He’s not only losing his adult form, but everything the last twenty-odd years have made him. He’s losing himself.”

            “Honestly, you think he’d be happy for the opportunity to start again without his memories of the war, or the Dark Lord, or any of the atrocities the rest of us had to suffer. Ignorance is bliss!”

            “Those things contributed to the person he is now. Would you give up all your memories to be innocent again?”

            Draco paused, and thought of Blaise and Pansy, and then of Greg and Vincent, who gave their lives to save Draco and Blaise from being exposed as spies. He thought of how much he loved Quidditch, and his ability to perform magic, and how ingrained those things were into the person he had grown to be. “No, I wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean you’re right.”

            Blaise merely looked at him.

            “Ugh, all right. You may or may not have a point, but that’s as may be and I need to be in Sinistra’s office in ten minutes to extract all of Potter’s memories.”       




            “Be kind, Draco.”

            “I’m surprised that word is in your vocabulary, you poor excuse for a Slytherin.”

            “Sometimes I wonder why I bother to take your firecalls anymore, Draco.” With a sigh, Blaise disconnected, and Draco stared at the empty hearth, momentarily mesmerized by the flames.

 

            “Dare I to presume you know how a Pensieve works, Potter?” Draco sat poised over the broad, shallow receptacle, Potter opposite him. He nodded. “Good. Begin with your most recent memories, and nod when you have one sufficiently gathered to be removed. I’ll withdraw it with my wand, and place it here. You will move on to your next most recent memory, and so on, until you reach the current age your body is now, in your memory.” Potter nodded again, and bit his lip.

            Draco waited, but he merely stared into the Pensieve, worrying his lower lip with his teeth, his hands clutching one another in his lap. “Well?” he prompted, impatient.

            “It’s just that I’m afraid,” Came the barely audible reply from Potter, who refused to meet Draco’s gaze.

            “Look, they’ll be safe here, really. Honestly. It was Granger’s idea, and she’d never bollocks it up.”

            “But when we’re done, who will I be?”

            “You. Just… you from a long time ago.”

            “I-- I don’t want you to see that part of me.”

            “I doubt I want to either, but we’re right out of options.”

            Potter seemed to steel himself, and sat up straighter. “I suppose. Just… Oh, never mind. Let’s get on with it, then.”

 

            They worked silently, and time slipped by, unnoticed. Potter kept his eyes closed, signaling his readiness with the briefest of nods, and Draco would gently press the tip of his wand to Potter’s temple, withdrawing whatever memory Potter’s mind had handed to him, then depositing the silver droplet into the basin between them. Draco’s back grew stiff, and he transfigured his chair into a squashy one, and Potter’s into a padded ottoman.

            He had plenty of time to study the boy. He had removed his ridiculous glasses, which were still far too big (and probably doing him more harm than good at this point), and without them, Draco was able to note how thin and delicate his skin was, every vein and artery traceable underneath it. His scar, livid and ugly, was large and pronounced on his forehead, giving the boy the appearance of having survived an attempt be cracked in two. There was no mistaking that this boy was Potter, despite his current air of fragility. His nose was neither proud, like Draco’s, nor snub, like Pansy’s, but gently rounded; unpresumptuous. His countenance bore not a trace of Potter’s habitual sleepy befuddlement, but had an almost painful, strained expression that Draco had never seen on a child before. It spoke of quiet acquiescence, of accustomed humility, and – if Draco was not mistaken – servility.

            Draco’s last musings scattered as Potter’s eyes opened and assaulted him with their lethal color and intensity.

            “What am I doing here? Who’re you?” He asked, and Draco knew they had succeeded.

            “Don’t be frightened,” Draco said, surprising himself with the gentleness of his tone. “I’ve been helping you, and you’ve just forgotten a lot of things. Look in here,” he pointed to the Pensieve, “And I promise you that you’ll remember.”

            Potter at the mental age of four eyed Draco warily, leaning toward the basin. When his eyes caught the swirl of silver mists writhing in the Pensieve, he froze, and stayed that way for several minutes. Finally, he groaned and rubbed his eyes, sitting back on his ottoman. “Ugh, that’s a lot to reabsorb at once.” He yawned. “How long have we been here?”

            “Hours, at least.” Draco waved his wand. “ _Tempus_. Merlin’s beard, it’s been six hours.”

            “I desperately need to piss.”

            “How kind of you to share.”

            Potter glared at him. “Ever the sourpuss, I see. I take it we’ve missed dinner, then?”

            “Quite.”

            “Then I’m heading down to the kitchen.” Potter hopped down from the ottoman and made for the door, turning back at the frame. “Thank you, Malfoy.”

            “Forget about it,” Draco flapped his hand, then winced as he realized the poor taste of his statement. He was startled to hear laughter as the door closed.

 

            Despite his best attempts to return to his room to sleep, Draco found himself searching out the kitchens and, more alarmingly, Potter. He found him seated on a stool at the counter, his feet dangling in space, as he polished off an éclair from a plate of four.

            “You can’t possibly be considering making a meal of those.” Potter turned at his voice, and grinned a very chocolaty grin.           




            “Yef I can,” he said around a bite of pastry.

            “Act your age, Potter.”

            “I am!”

            Sighing, Draco dragged a stool to the counter and helped himself to an éclair. “I’ll help you with these, and then you’re eating something healthy. Really.”

            They ate in a companionable silence, and when they were finished, Draco clapped his hands lightly and a house elf appeared. “Bring us two plates of whatever was served at dinner.”

            The elf bowed and disappeared.

            Draco looked over at Potter, who had managed to sustain a swipe of cream next to his mouth and remain totally oblivious about it. Feeling briefly like his own mum, he licked his thumb and absently swiped across Potter’s cheek before bringing the thumb to his lips and darting his tongue out to eat the cream himself. Potter looked at him in surprise, rubbing his sleeve across his face and swallowing his mouthful loudly. Draco was mortified by his unconscious action. To hide his blush, he ran his hands through his hair, letting it fall around his face as he turned away from Potter’s wide eyes. He was rescued by the reappearance of the house elf, who placed a plate in front of each of them and vanished once again.

            “Since when do they serve bangers and mash for dinner?” Potter mused aloud, poking the crisp casing of his sausage. “Sinistra must be going batty.”        




            “At least it’s not peppermint humbugs and that ghastly steak and kidney pie.”

            “I liked those!”

            “There’s no accounting for taste, Potty.”

            They were on familiar ground here, and Draco felt his dignity return as they bandied light insults at one another.

            “I’ve been instructed to come by your quarters in the morning to escort you to breakfast,” Draco said as they pushed their plates away.

            “I doubt I need an escort.”   




            “You can’t perform magic, except when particularly upset – and then only by accident, and you’re very small and vulnerable. Should someone corner you, alone, you’re practically defenseless—“

            “I am not, I’ve got my wild magic. And besides, who’d want to harm me?”

            “Peeves, for one.”

            “…Right.” Potter frowned, and finally nodded. “All right, then.”

 

            Draco knocked on Potter’s door for the third time. He had been escorting Potter to meals, to his Defense Against the Dark Arts classes to assist Granger (he had insisted that he not be entirely relieved of his duties as long as he was still able), and to his quarters, feeling very much like a valet for about two weeks. It was Wednesday, Draco’s least favorite day, and it was not adopting a more favorable impression as Potter refused to open his door.

            “Potter, if you don’t open this door in thirty seconds, I’m coming in. I’m not about to miss breakfast because of you.” When there was no response, he unlocked the door with a quick spell and opened it. “I hope you’re decent.”

            He was rewarded with a sniffle from the floor near the bed.

            “Potter?” He cautiously picked his way across the room, wand out. “Are you all right?”

            “I can’t do it,” came a small, miserable voice from the huddled form of Potter. He was hugging his knees and Draco wondered what was wrong when – oh. His trainer laces were in knots.

            “You can’t remember?” Draco asked quietly. They had been visiting the Pensieve once every three days or so, and there had been no problems, until now.

            “I know, logically, that this is something I know how to do, but my hands have forgotten.” Potter’s face was red and his eyes were puffy, and he was staunchly avoiding looking up.

            “Body memory isn’t exactly a conscious thing, Potter. It’s not your fault you can’t remember.”

            “That’s not all, though.” Potter fought to gain control over his tears. “Only I haven’t told you. There’re spells we learn that operate on the same principle, training our hands and wrists to perform the precise movements and I – I can’t remember any of them.”

            “Granger seems to be making headway,” Draco offered. “Why don’t we go and have a word with her?” Potter’s eyes seemed to light up at this, and Draco prayed he wasn’t giving him false hope. “Come, I’ll take you there.” He held out his hand, and then flinched slightly as he remembered the last time he had done so to that same boy, so long ago. Potter seemed to remember as well, because he held onto Draco’s hand a bit longer than was necessary when he stood, as if grasping it in some unspoken truce.

 

            “H’lo, Harry,” Granger said cheerfully, not glancing up from the book on her desk. She had her glasses pushed up on her head, holding back the violent mass of frizz that barely qualified as hair. “How’re you doing?”

            Potter hesitated, so Draco nudged him. “I can’t remember how to do simple things anymore.”

            Granger put her finger on the line she was reading and looked up. “Body memory?”

            “That’s what Malfoy said.”

            “Hmm.” Granger frowned and closed her book, picking another one from the numerous stacks on the desk. Flipping to a page near the middle, she read for a few moments, then looked at Potter.

            “We ought to have the Headmistress with us before we discuss this, but I do fear the worst. I’m sorry, Harry.” Potter’s countenance fell, and he studied a knot in the floor with great interest. “Look on the bright side, though,” she continued. “At least your head didn’t explode.”

 

            Sinistra was fetched, and Granger sat austerely behind her fortress of books until everyone was seated in conjured, straight-backed oak chairs. Granger had conjured them, and Draco was beginning to suspect that she was most at ease in group settings when everyone else wasn’t. He shifted uncomfortably on the hard seat, trying to gain purchase in his slippery silk robes.

            “Harry’s mental degradation has begun to set in,” Granger began, and Draco saw Potter’s hand go white where it gripped the side of the chair. “It’s not an exact science, but I suspect you have less than a week before you lose even the ability to refresh your memory. Since we’re still trying to create a counter-potion and test it successfully, know that we haven’t lost hope of you regaining your former self, so take heart. Malfoy?”

            “Yes?”

            “We’ll be moving Harry and you to a larger set of adjoining rooms with your own loo. Is this satisfactory to the both of you?”

            “Faugh! Ugh, how—oh, I suppose.” Draco suddenly found himself too tired to throw a proper fit and folded his hands in his lap. Potter merely nodded, studying his knees with great interest.

            “You may continue to assist teaching Defense Against Dark Arts, if you wish, Mr. Potter; Mr. Malfoy, you’ll still be expected to keep up with your teaching duties for as long as possible.”

            “Headmistress, if at all possible, I would like to take a leave of absence from my position as professor, but if… I mean, when I’m healed, would the position still be available to me?”

            Sinistra’s hatchet-like face produced a reasonable facsimile of a smile filled with sympathy. “Yes, of course, Mr. Potter.”

 

 

            Potter had moved his things in shortly before Draco arrived: he was balanced on top of a chair, which was on top of a trunk, in an attempt to put some of his newly-shrunken clothing on a shelf.

            “Honestly, Potter, your instinct for heroics is profoundly misplaced.” He held the chair still as Potter climbed down, glaring at him, and lifted it off of the trunk. “Just take the lower shelves, all right?” As Draco turned away, he muttered “Shrimp.”

            In less than ten seconds he was on his face, having been tackled around the knees.

            “Shrimp, maybe,” came a growl from near his shin, “but I can still pin you.”

            “Dream on, Potter.” Draco tried to dislodge himself and failed, much to Potter’s delight. “Geroff me, you little squid!” Irritated as he was, he felt it would be wrong to use the brunt of his strength against a child. But Draco was a Slytherin, and was never one for fighting fair.

            “ _Wingardium Leviosa!”_ Draco shrieked into the carpet as Potter began to tickle the backs of his knees maliciously. The weight lifted from his legs and he stood, leveling his wand at a furious, floating Potter. “Where were we? Oh yes. I am bigger and smarter than you are, and also if you tickle me again I will turn you into an actual squid.”

            As Draco lowered him to the ground and turned to remove the child’s clothing from the uppermost shelf, a muffled “Could take you as a squid, too” came from the vicinity of Potter’s trunk, which, incidentally, contained much of Potter.

 

            The next morning, Draco woke to the sound of someone opening and closing doors and cabinets, and the soft patter of bare feet against the carpet.

            “What are you doing?” He rubbed his eyes irritably as he lit a candle. “It can’t even be half five, for Merlin’s sake…“ He trailed off as Potter stared at him, wide-eyed, curiously. _Well, that’s it, then._ “Hello,” Draco said, slowly swinging his legs down over the side of the bed and toeing on his slippers. “Don’t be afraid. I’m your – I’m, er, a friend.”

            “Where am I?” Potter edged toward the door – which he didn’t know was the door to the bath, apparently --  keeping his back to the wall.

            “There’s been an accident, and you’re staying here, with me. We’re in a castle in Scotland, and there are many children here. They go to school here. Right now the teachers are trying to find a way to help you get back home.” That was as close to the truth as he could get without being completely confusing, so instead of summoning a house elf, he said, “Would you like some tea and biscuits? I can have some sent up for us.”

            Slowly, Potter nodded. “I still don’t understand…where did Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia go? I mean, I mean, I don’t want to go back there, if it’s okay, but if you hurt them –“

            “No, they’re all right, I promise. No one’s harmed them. You just got …lost, in a way.”

            “Can’t you get me back, though?”

            “Well, it’s a bit complicated.”

            “Are you a kidnapper?” A slight tremor laced the query.

            “No! Merlin, no. What would I do with a titchy little thing like you?”

            At this, Potter – no, that didn’t seem right now – the child relaxed. “Any number of things but… you don’t seem the type.”

            “Thank Dumbledore for that.” Draco stood and went to the door. “Let me just summon someone to get us some tea.” He leaned out the door before calling a house elf. “Tea and biscuits, or whatever pastry you have on hand.” With a crack the elf disappeared, and he returned his head and shoulders to his room.

            “There. Would you like to sit?” The child sat obediently on the floor. “In a chair?” He stared dumbly at Draco until he realized that there weren’t any chairs in the room. He reflexively reached for his wand to conjure one, but forestalled himself, instead sighing and slipping to the floor himself.

            The house elf returned, knocking even as he opened the door. Harry’s eyes went wide.

            “Aaaah!” said tiny Harry, pressing himself against the wall.

            “Aaaah!” said the house elf, setting the tea tray down hurriedly and vanishing with a nervous look on his face. Ah, Manky was his name, Draco mused. Terrible name, even by house elf standards.

            “Erm,” Draco paused, suspecting that if the git felt half as awkward all the time as he felt now, he would most certainly understand Potter’s inability to cobble together a coherent sentence much of the time. “Ehh… s’all right. That’s just a house elf, that’s all. No need to get agitated.”

            “An elf?”

            “Well, not a proper one. Just the house variety. They tidy banisters and make tea and do all the other important things we seem to forget about.” He poured tea into his cup and added milk, then offered sugar to Harry, who shook his head dumbly and pointed a pink chubby finger to the milk. Draco smiled, then attempted to stop smiling, and found that he could not. This upset him profoundly but, he decided, it was in his best interest to behave in a disarming fashion. He handed him his tea, receiving a duck of the head in way of thanks. “I suppose I should probably explain some things to you.”

            “Can I…?”

            “Sorry?”

            “Um. It’s just. I’m hungry, you see.” He pointed again, only this time to the muffins.

            “Of course. Only, save one for me.”

            “Do you want one now?”

            “I’d love one; unfortunately, there’s the business of explaining everything to you, and in the course of doing so _I_ might become agitated.”

            “So?” came the muffiny question.

            “Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One must eat muffins quite calmly, it is the only way to eat them.”

            “No it isn’t. You can eat them like this – OM NOM NOM!” Harry’s muffin was gone in three bites, except for the crumbs dangling from his face like a perverse blueberry-laced beard. Draco resisted the urge to do the thumb thing again and handed Harry a napkin. Harry stared at it, then started shredding it, then used the shreds to make a nest for his second muffin. Draco was at a loss for words. Then he remembered that he didn’t very often suffer the presence of children, other than the occasional epic bout with Hilda, from which he very rarely came away with clean hair. He shuddered a bit, then shook himself, and began.

            “Harry, the world you know and the world around you now are both the same, but very different. Where you come from, magic is thought to be a thing of fairy tales. But here, magic is real.” Harry’s eyes widened and appeared overly large behind his also overly large glasses. “Would you like me to show you?”

            He nodded, muffin nest apparently forgotten. In spite of himself, Draco smiled, _again,_ and took out his wand. “This is my wand. Every witch or wizard has one, and we use them to help us cast spells properly. Say, if I wanted to turn that heap of shredded napkin into a plate,” swish and flick and, “I could.” Harry picked up the plate, ran his hands over it, and thumped it on the carpet.

            “Neat,” he breathed, a look of wonder on his small, delicate face. “Do something else!”

            Draco nodded and conjured two chairs, wincing when he noticed that they were of the squashy, atrociously-upholstered armchair variety of which Dumbledore was so fond. Setting his plate with muffin on the seat and then clamoring up next to it, Harry made himself comfortable, beaming at Draco.

            “On with our story. Now, Harry, you, like me, are a wizard.”

            “What!”

            “Yes, but you aren’t currently old enough to perform magic. However,” Draco swallowed, “you weren’t this young a few weeks ago. There was a magical accident that turned you, as a person my age, into the age that you are now.”

            There was a long silence as child-Harry absorbed this news. “Will I ever go back?” He asked, softly.

            “We hope so. Some friends of yours are working up a cure as we speak.”

            “Are you my friend?”

            Draco thought of Harry as he knew him: bane of his existence, bitter enemy, insufferable do-gooder. He looked at the child before him: innocent, unsure, kind of irritating, but only in the way all children are. He took a deep breath.

            “Yes. I am.”

            Harry marveled at this. “I’ve never had one of those before.”

            “Why not?”

            His countenance fell. “W-well, if Dudley sees any kids talking to me or wanting to play with me, he hits them or says mean things and then they don’t talk to me anymore.”

            “What?”

            “My cousin Dudley.  I live with him.”

            “I hope you don’t have to share a room with that bully.”

            “No, I’ve got my cupboard.”

            “Well, I suppose it’s nice to keep your things separate, at least.”

            “No, I mean I sleep in the cupboard.”

            “What?” Draco was aghast. He’d heard this one make its run through the rumor mill back in school, but he had thought it just another exaggeration belonging to Potter’s mythos of pathos. But to hear that it was true… Sure, children were nearly intolerable, but one doesn’t just go about horribly abusing children. Using sarcasm on them, surely, but this – “Your uncle and aunt, do they take good care of you?”

            Harry nodded eagerly. “If I cook and do the dishes, I get to eat.”

            Draco felt sick. He must have looked it, because Harry frowned and came over to Draco, putting his hands on his knee and looking earnestly up into his face.

            “I won’t have to go back there, will I?”

            “No,” said Draco faintly, his mind reeling. “Never again.”

 

            “Did you know he was abused and neglected as a child?” Severus looked up, noted his apprentice standing before him in a fit of holy wrath, and looked back down at the scroll he was grading, using a ruler to draw bold, red lines through every row of text.

            “Rubbish,” he muttered, and Draco wasn’t sure if he was referring to Draco’s accusation or the essay that presently held his attention. In keeping with his fit of pique, Draco took the inkwell and hurled it against the wall, where it burst in a brilliant scarlet spatter and a twinkle of broken glass.

            “I did always think that spatters of red liquid enlivened the dungeons’ décor,” the aging wizard replied, continuing to cross out the essay until he ran out of ink. He set the quill down with a sigh and looked up, his features assembled in a mask of disgust he had created especially for Draco. “I attempted to train the boy in Occlumency when he was my pupil, but he was an appalling Occlumens. Of course I know that. It didn’t make him any less of a prat than his father, who was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth.” _Much like you,_ he didn’t add. Draco heard it anyway.

            “Still, though. Why did Dumbledore allow it to continue, if he knew where Harry was all those years?”

            “Some sort of ancient blood magic. It protected Harry and hid him from the Dark Lord.”

            “Clever old bat. Sadistic, but clever.”

            “It was also meant to keep him from getting a swelled head for being the Boy Who Sodding Well Lived, but we know how well that turned out.”

            “Mm.” Draco’s thoughts drifted to Harry, who was currently napping in the conjured armchair, clutching a plush dragon transfigured from the erstwhile remains of the boy’s napkin shreds. He tried to conjure an instance from memory when Harry had referred to himself as the Boy Who Lived without dark, bitter sarcasm, but failed. All this reevaluating of things he once thought he had sussed was giving him a frightful headache.  “I need a nap.”

            “I need a gin and tonic,” said Severus Snape. “Flag down a house elf on your way out, won’t you?”

 

            Draco and Harry soon settled into a very odd sort of Draco-and-Harry routine. Instead of the par “banter snippy insults from breakfast until noon, break for lunch, then resume spitting darts for the remainder of the day, cloudy with a chance of smash your face in at sunset,” it was “feed Harry, take Harry outside to play, read with Harry, feed Harry lunch, visit Hermione while Harry naps, then wake Harry to play again” and though Draco dropped into bed exhausted each night, he had to admit he was exercising face muscles normally accustomed to glowering. And as much fun as terrorizing Hufflepuffs was, he certainly didn’t want to wind up looking like Snape at fifty, with lines etched into his face as though a glacier had carved them there.

 

            “The art of potion-making,” intoned Draco in a sepulchral voice, “Is perhaps the most important thing you will ever learn. It could save a thousand people from certain death, or turn them all into hedgehogs, if one little thing goes wrong. It requires that you pay absolute attention and _not touch anything_.”

            “Oooo,” said Harry, appropriately awed. His hands clutched each other in his lap, and he watched Draco from atop the front and middle desk as Draco gave him a customized rendition of his usual introductory speech. “Do you mean just me, or can you not touch stuff either?”

            “Just you.”

            “Oh.”

            “Come up here though – I’ll show you how to brew a potion that makes your hair turn purple and stand on end.” Eagerly, Harry unfolded his crossed legs and hurriedly made to hop from the desk, stepping on one of his own shoelaces in the process. He toppled face-first from the desk with a sickening crack.

            “Oh!” The sound escaped Draco’s throat before he could stop himself, and he kneeled as Harry sat up, his face red. He was trembling, but not crying, even though there was a cut on his cheek and his nose was bleeding. His broken glasses slid off his face and hung from one ear.

            “Shh,” Draco said, half-expecting him to cry at any moment, but he didn’t. He continued to shake with the effort of holding in his tears. “I know it hurts, Harry, come here. I’ll fix you up.” Gingerly, he moved to shelter the child with his body, taking the glasses from his ear and quickly repairing them with a whispered spell. Setting them aside, he cast a spell to halt the blood flow, using his sleeve to dab away the excess. “There now. Does it still hurt?”

            After a pause, Harry nodded.

            “Poor Harry. Come here,” Draco opened his arms, and Harry tumbled into them, his self-control snapping as he began to sob, his hot wet face making Draco’s chest very uncomfortable. Unable to stop himself, he made soothing noises and ran his hand over the dark shock of hair, stroking it gently. After a few moments, the sobbing turned to hiccups, and Draco made to stand. Little fists clenching his robe made this impossible, so he picked the poor child up, who immediately buried his head in Draco’s neck, snuffling and dampening this as well. Draco sighed. “I take it you’ve had enough of potions for one day, haven’t you? I seem to recall you had a similar response to this class when you took it in school.” He scooped up the newly-repaired glasses, hoisted Harry up for a better grip, and began the trek up to the infirmary.

            “Now I know you’ll like this,” Draco said with a smile, as he sat next to Harry on one of the infirmary beds, waiting for Madame Pomfrey to return with a salve to heal his cuts. “Look.” Smoothing out the bed sheet, he flicked his wand and tapped it several times on the sheet. “ _Pixem Luxem._ ” In the places he tapped his wand colored sparks appeared, dancing like disembodied sparklers on the sheet, bouncing and colliding. “You can touch them, they won’t hurt you.” Harry did, and they danced up his fingers to his arm and into his hair.

            He giggled. “It tickles!”

            “Pixie sparks are mischievous, and would rather hide than be extinguished. Shake your head.” All but two sparks fell into his lap, glowing against his denims. They couldn’t match the glow on his face as he looked up at Draco with wonder. Giggling in spite of himself, he plucked the renegades from his small companion’s hair, and let them race around his own fingers. “My father used to cast this spell for me when I was made to sit with him to state affairs, dinners, fetes, boring grown-up things.”

            “They kind of remind me of the spiders in my cupboard,” Harry said thoughtfully, “Only much more sparkly.”

            Draco shuddered, putting his arm around Harry, who snuggled into his side. “Don’t tell me you played with them.”

            “They’re not so bad. The ones that hide in the dark don’t hurt people. They’re just hairy.” Seeing the look on Draco’s face, he hastened to add, “But these are much better!”

            “You are a strange and morbid child,” Draco said, then added thoughtfully, “and you would have done well in Slytherin.”

            Pomfrey returned, and, as if noting the presence of a sensible adult in the room, the sparks took refuge in the cuff of Harry’s sleeve, which to the casual observer seemed a bit more wiggly than the rest of his sweater, but otherwise normal.

            “Harry, may I speak with you privately for a moment?”

            “Okay,” he said, looking up at Draco, who nodded and lifted him down. Casting _Muffliato_ , Pomfrey crouched in front of Harry with a serious expression.

            “I want you to answer me truthfully, without fear of punishment or anything bad happening to you. You are safe here, do you understand?” Harry nodded. “Good. Now, please tell me: did Draco do this to you?”

            “No! He would never,” Harry said stoutly, piercing her with a fierce glare. “He’s my _friend_.”

            She smiled, rubbing the salve gently onto his cheek. “There’s a good lad. All better. Thank you for coming to visit me, but take care in the future, all right?”

            Harry nodded again and ran back to Draco, sparks flying out of his sleeve and racing to catch up to him. When he stopped in front of Draco they trickled up his trouser leg and came to rest somewhere near his right ear.

            “What do you want to do now?” He asked, slightly breathless.

            “No, what do _you_ want to do now?” Draco asked in return. “I said potions last time, and well. We can do that another time.”

            “No, I want to do that. Please,” he added as an afterthought, looking up at Draco with such frank adoration that his chest hurt.

            “All right, but only because I think you’d look fantastic with purple hair.”

            “Me too!”

 

            The next week was certainly an entirely new sort of week for Draco. After all, he could honestly say that never before had his morning ablutions included being roused at half-five by four stone of miniature Potter flinging himself on Draco’s bed and bouncing up and down until Draco threw the duvet over his head and made a beeline for the bathroom while Potter sorted the blanket out. He could also honestly say that he’d never felt so bloody genuine about anything. It might have been a record for him, having not uttered a single caustic remark for over a week and a half.

            And he could say that he’d never felt so absolutely vital to anyone, ever, and that it crushed him to know that as soon as Potter was cured, Harry would be gone, and it would be back to hostility and naked loathing on Potter’s face, instead of, instead of…

            “That? Oh, I got that off a hippogriff, actually,” Draco said, pushing his sleeve up as Harry traced his finger along the scar. “Your hippogriff, if I remember correctly.”

            Harry looked his plush hippogriff in the face. “They don’t look that fierce.”

            “Famous last words, I assure you.”

            “Well, I’m glad you’re okay.”

            “It was a long time ago, anyway. You also had a dragon, if only briefly.” Harry, in an eerie moment of clarity, named his plush dragon Norbert. He had named the hippogriff Balabaluga, something that Draco had a hard time pronouncing and an even harder time understanding _why._

 

            “You like it,” Blaise said teasingly. No rebuttal came. “You like looking after him?”

            “It’s… fun,” muttered Draco, looking everywhere but at the fireplace.

            “You used the f-word!” Blaise’s eyes widened and he craned his head back toward someone standing behind him. “Panse! Draco said the f-word!”

            “Was it somehow related to the dark arts?” Came a shrill, distant voice.

            “No.”

            “Torturing first years?”

            “Nope.”

            “Was the nature of the action… wholesome?”

            “Oh, definitely.”

            “Bollocks.”

            “No, he did!”

            A loud banging at his door interrupted the Floo call. “Hang on,” Draco called as he strode to the door of his erstwhile chambers.

            It was Granger. “We’ve got a solution we’d like to try. Harry’s already been escorted to the lab.”

            “All right.” Draco made to close the door. Blaise tried to eavesdrop unobtrusively.

            “If you wouldn’t mind joining us, Harry, he,” she swallowed as though trying to swallow her own incredulity, “he won’t let us touch him. Literally, his magic is keeping us away. He keeps calling for you.”

            “Oh,” he said, the sinking feeling in his chest mingling with the fierce pride that Harry wanted only him. “Of course.”

            He summoned the plush dragon that Harry was so fond of, and was out the door before Blaise could shout, “Hey! This conversation is _not_ over!”

 

            “It smells.”  Harry eyed the potion dubiously through the steam condensing on his glasses.

            “ _You_ smell,” Draco replied, ruffling his hair. Harry mock-glared at him and Draco stuck out his tongue. Then realizing that they were in the company of other adults, Draco retrieved his tongue and snapped his mouth shut, shooting a challenging look at Granger and Severus, who were too busy making eyes at each other to notice. Draco shuddered.

            “Why do I hafta drink this?”

            “It will make you big again.  Don’t you want to be big like me again?”

            “Will we still be friends?”

            Draco didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. “Of course,” he said instead, smoothing down the hair he had previously disheveled.

            “And I’ll be big, so we can go ride brooms together, yeah?” He leaned into the touch almost imperceptibly, Draco felt even more miserable.

            “Yeah. Come on, now. Gra- Miss Granger worked hard on this, let’s not disappoint her.” 

            Beaming bravely at Draco, he nodded, took a deep breath, and gulped down the potion.

            For a brief moment, nothing happened. Then –

            Curling in on himself with a wordless scream, Harry began to grow before their eyes. For all the foresight that went into inventing an antidote for Harry’s unique situation, everyone had forgotten to resize his clothing. Draco vanished his robe before the collar strangled him, quickly wishing he hadn’t, as he wasn’t adequately prepared for the sight of a naked Potter. A naked Potter who, alarmed at both his new size and recent nudity, tried to climb in Draco’s lap and hide in his robes.

            “Let’s get you those memories back, shall we?” Draco managed to say, in a far less dignified pitch than he would have liked. Harry, suddenly shy around the others, buried his face in Draco’s neck and refused to budge.

            “Make them go away.” Came the muffled response, the vibrations of speech tickling his neck. Potter was going to kill him. Draco gestured to the two insufferable know-it-alls in the room, who, doubled over with laughter, found it difficult to make it out of the room without conveniently clinging all over each other, bonding through schadenfreude.

            “Disgusting.” Draco couldn’t help but comment.

            “Me?” Harry-disguised-as-Potter lifted his head, and Draco patted his back absently, still caught up in his horror at the budding atrocity that was currently no doubt off groping each other in places that had never seen the light of day.

            “Not you,” he said, pulling Harry closer. Abruptly, he set Harry on the floor and transfigured an infirmary bed sheet into a set of adult robes. What was he thinking, being soppy? Soon the child he lo—looked after, was what he was going to say, the child he had looked after so diligently, would be gone and he would never see him again. Harry would become Potter, and everything and everyone would be back to normal. Except he didn’t think he could ever punch Potter again without that earnest, adoring look of his Harry flashing before his eyes. Potter would still hate him and Draco wouldn’t be able to bring himself to properly hate him back.

            “Come on,” he said, sighing and holding out his hand. “Let’s go.”

 

            As he turned his face up from the Pensieve, Draco saw that something in his eyes had changed. He looked away.

            “I don’t know what to say,” came Potter’s voice, though it sounded more hoarse than usual. Draco told himself that it didn’t matter.

            “I’ll spare you the trouble. I did my duty as I was ordered to. There’s no need to thank me at all – let’s just be glad that the whole ordeal is over.” Ignoring the sudden blanching of Potter’s face in anger and the breaking in his own chest, he strode calmly out of the room. The click of the door shutting behind him was as loud as thunder.

 

            Draco would sooner Obliviate someone than have them know that, after a lengthy match against a bottle of Old Ogden’s (Ogden 1 Draco 0), he curled around Norbert on top of his duvet and passed out, trying not to think about the coming morning.

            Severus had been no help. He was in far too smug a mood (and Draco was not the slightest bit willing to surmise _why_ ) to sympathise with Draco’s unaccountable lack of hatred, or even apathy toward Potter. But Snape had always taken an alternative sort of approach toward children. He had never had any of his own (yet! Ugh --), but rather devoted all of his time in their presence to helping them develop syndromes and anxieties. If pressed, he would probably say he was doing it for their own good. Draco knew he did it for kicks.

            No, no one could possibly understand how Draco felt. Draco didn’t even know how Draco felt, and he considered this a fell sign that he was not, in fact, omniscient. Everything was _wrong._

“Draco, are you drunk?” Blaise’s thoroughly unconcerned features appeared out of the suddenly merry flames in Draco’s hearth.

            “Yes,” declared Draco, with as much defiance as he could muster. It wasn’t much. He may or may not have been snuggling what may or may not have been a plush dragon, and also a mostly empty tumbler of whiskey. Whiskey, he thought, was good at comforting, but terrible at cuddling. At least he had Norbert. Norbert would never have to be cured and become a napkin again, a napkin who had hated him for a good twelve years and would punch his face in as soon as look at him.

            “I see,” Blaise was saying, and Draco realised he’d been having his monologue aloud. “You’ve gone mad. Well, that’s done it. Theo owes me twenty Galleons.”

            “You were placing bets on my sanity?” Draco asked faintly, dissolving slowly into the divan and losing his glass.

            “On when you would lose it, anyway. We always knew Potter would drive you ‘round the twist at some point or another.”

            “I hate you.”

            “No you don’t, you love me, even when I’m about to tell you things you don’t want to hear.”

            Draco made a noncommittal noise and rather hated that everyone knew him so well.

            “All you’ve ever wanted, for as long as I can remember, is for Potter to pay attention to you. Frankly, it had us all making sick-up faces behind your back, but we were too afraid of Crabbe and Goyle—“ Draco was glad Blaise left out “and your father,” but he heard it anyway—“to try to beat it out of you, you little idiot. Now, I am too old and tired to care.”

            “You’re the same age as me.”

            “Exactly my point! You’re too old to be approaching this problem from the same old tactic that never worked anyway. Go ask to be his friend. It’s what normal people do.”

            “He’ll laugh in my face.” Draco flailed until his hand found whiskey, and brought the bottle to his lips. “And anyway, I hate him.”

            Blaise just laughed and laughed until Draco threw the bottle at the fireplace.

            “You’re an arse, and frankly, you’ll be extremely lucky if he doesn’t laugh in your face. Any sane person would. But I wager, since I’m so very good at it, that Potter’s every bit as insane as you are by this point. He might say yes.”

            And with that troubling thought, Blaise had left Draco alone.

            Two months ago, if anyone had bothered to ask Draco if he loved anyone, he would have said he loved his mother and father, his pet kneazle, and possibly dear old Sev. Now, he saw those relationships as duty, fondness, and admiration, respectively. Now, he had no idea how to define the word, but he had the horrid, sinking feeling that he might have loved Harry.

            But Harry was gone, and now it was just that awful sod Potter, who…

            …Who was once Harry.

            Draco was experiencing acute cognitive dissonance and this did not mesh well with a hangover. It involved time-travel and potions, possibly even a time-travelling potion, and –

            Draco dragged himself and Norbert over to the tea service and began to plan.

 

            In the end, Draco found himself approaching Potter as he was grading papers, and holding out his spare broom. Potter looked at the proffered broom, then at the other broom tucked under Draco’s arm, and raised an eyebrow at his stark refusal to look Potter in the eye.

            “Do you want,” Draco started to say, at the same time Potter’s fingers closed around the broom handle. Draco looked up at him.

            “Yeah,” Potter said, and his bright smile went straight to Draco’s chest and stayed there.

 

            “If you’d flown that brilliantly in school, I wouldn’t have stood a chance!”

            “I’ve always flown brilliantly,” Draco knew he was going pink around the ears anyway.

            “Really though, thanks. I’ve never played a Seeker’s game before.” Potter’s hand encircled his arm just above the elbow, and as Draco turned to look at him, he found his arms full of Potter.

            “I missed you,” he said quietly, just past Draco’s ear. He ducked away before Draco could return the hug, turned, and fled.

            Draco clutched nothing for a few moments, before feeling like a fool and dropping his arms to his sides. His heart was pounding harder than it had during his match against Potter. More Ogden’s, he decided, and promised himself that one of these days he’d have gin and tonic and see what the fuss was about.

            After his fourth tumblerful, Draco was staring pensively at Norbert, and attempting to draw him out into conversation.

            “You knew him best,” Draco argued. “Tell me what he’s probably thinking right now.”

            Before Norbert had the opportunity to respond, there was a knock at the entrance to Draco’s quarters. “Hold that thought.” Draco propped himself up with the wall and worked his way to the door. The knock came again, but a bit uncertainly.

            “I’m coming!” Draco shouted, then giggled. “In the non-sexual way! I’m using vectors!”

            “I understand physics better when I’m drinking,” he said by way of greeting, before realizing that his guest was Potter. “Oh.”

            “You should never study physics alone,” Potter admonished. “People might suspect you have a problem.” Draco giggled. “Can I come in?”

            Draco was too busy giggling to respond, so Potter came in, put his arm around Draco, and helped him to the sofa, and sat himself down in the chair, dethroning Norbert and depositing him in his lap.

            “You kept it.”

            “It went with the décor,” Draco waved his hand around lazily at his furnishings. Potter snorted.

            “Yes, I can see how neon green and purple would go so well,” he remarked with mostly a straight face, his gaze wandering the room, taking stock of the dark, warm woods and rich grey curtains. “I was thinking,” Potter began, “remember when you were showing me how to make potions? I was having a lot of fun. I hated potions in school, but only because Snape seemed obsessed with making sure I failed. With you, I was actually learning, and you didn’t make me feel like a complete idiot.”

            “Yes, well. Snape hated you,” Draco replied, not realizing the admission for what it was until after he’d said it. He was also much too drunk to register that he was, according to his own personal standards, failing to become the model potions master he’d dreamed he would become. But he was also intrigued at what Potter was saying, and the particular shade of pink he was turning, so he continued to listen.

            “So I was thinking, if you’re not busy sometime, would you do that again with me?”

            Draco thought for some time, or at the very least, attempted to. “This is a trap,” he settled on. “An evil, evil trap.” There, he thought, and folded his arms across his chest.

            “Yes,” said Potter with a shy little smile, “but I was hoping you would play along.”

            Draco sniffed and attempted to salvage what little was left of his scowl. “If you are so socially inept that you would rather attempt some bizarre reenactment of your childhood with your arch nemesis than –“ here he fished around for examples of normal social behavior, but came up empty “—than what normal people do,” he finished somewhat lamely, “I certainly won’t stop you.”

            “So… normal people don’t want to hang out with you? Is that what you’re saying?”

            “Normal people wouldn’t even dream of hanging out with me.” Nice save, he congratulated himself. “They wouldn’t know the first thing about it.” Draco thought about pouring himself another glass of Ogden’s, but after some searching could not find his hands. “And Malfoys do not ‘hang out.’ They lounge.”

            “After everything that’s happened to me, I don’t think anyone’s considered me normal for a long time.” Potter brought the plush dragon to his face and nuzzled it. “He smells like you.”

            “He smells like you,” Draco corrected without thinking, instantly flushing with shame.

            Potter was looking at him, his eyes huge beneath the lenses of his glasses. He swallowed visibly. “Listen, I—“

            “Don’t be ridiculous,” Draco interrupted. “Just don’t.”

            “Is it so ridiculous to want to be your friend?” Potter burst out, standing and storming over to the couch to tower above Draco. “Are you really happier this way, pretending to be aloof, pretending to hate me even though I know that’s not true anymore?”

            “That’s not true!” Draco spat furiously, rising to his feet and attempting to intimidate Potter with his height. “You don’t know anything about me.”

            “I know enough,” Potter said quietly, though the storm still raged in his eyes, “to know that I like you. I know enough to know I want more.”

            “More what?”

            “More of your time.” The expression on Potter’s face was so vulnerable, so hopeful, that Draco caught a glimpse of the quantity he knew as Harry. “More of you.”

            Draco sagged with defeat, sitting heavily on the couch again. Potter settled to the floor at his feet and rested his head on Draco’s knee. He touched his fingertips to the messy black hair there, and Potter leaned into his touch. He wanted what Potter wanted. He just didn’t see how it would ever be the same. And frankly, the thought of having the same relationship with a fully grown Potter would be creepy. So maybe different could be good. He continued to pet Potter’s hair. The honesty of alcohol won, and he murmured, “I missed you, too.” Potter made a tiny noise of contentment, which he attempted to stifle in the knee of Draco’s trousers. The vibrations tickled, and Draco was suddenly quite aware that there was a grown man nuzzling his knee. Not, mind you, he had ever objected to that sort of thing. Or the nuzzling of other bits. But this! –

            “Um,” Draco said artfully.

            “Uh?” Potter lifted his face to look at him, glasses crooked. Draco’s heart did a weird floppy thing like a fish on dry land.

            “I need…” Draco was conflicted about what he needed. “More whiskey,” he decided.

            “You have classes to teach tomorrow. Or does drinking help you study chemistry as well?” Potter was not moving away from his knee to retrieve the bottle of Ogden’s from the sideboard, as intended.

            “Potions,” Draco clarified, “have nothing to do with chemistry.”

            “I noticed,” Potter said dryly. “From what I can tell, the only governing principle seems to be poetic irony.”

            “We try to keep that part a secret,” Draco admitted. “You’re very astute.”

            Potter pulled away from Draco with a smile, which went to join the other two that were still lodged in Draco’s chest. He was going to have to see Madame Pomfrey about that, no doubt. Having another man’s smile lodged in one’s chest could be life-threatening, and if it wasn’t, it should be. Draco found his rapidly changing perspective to be not unlike his life flashing before his eyes. He saw Potter at eleven, bedraggled but righteous; Potter at four with fear and wonder and admiration, and he saw the man before him, now standing and offering him his hand, and, if the look on his face was any indication, offering him much more. It wasn’t even a decision really, just an acknowledgement of what was already there: he took Potter’s hand, and attempted to stand. He succeeded for the most part, and Potter slid his arm around him.

            “It’s late. Let’s get you to bed.” His words made Draco shiver with anticipation, but to his great dismay, Potter did not undress and join him in the bed. Instead, he tucked him in, with Norbert, and kissed him on the head. The room was spinning a little, but it spun around Potter, who stayed in the same place, smiling at him like a beacon.

            “Goodnight, Draco.”

            Draco waved sleepily and let his hand fall back to the pillow. He yawned. “Goodnight, Harry.”

            He was asleep before the door closed.

 

            Draco woke slowly, peaceful and happy and not really knowing why. After a hangover potion and two cups of cocoa piled high with whipped cream, he remembered. He and Potter had plans. Friendly! plans, it seemed, from what he could recollect, which was nearly everything.

            It could be good, he decided, as he buttoned up the seventy-three buttons on his apprentice’s uniform. But it could also go horribly wrong.

 

            “This has gone horribly wrong.” Draco glared at Potter, who was glaring at his potion, which was glaring at them both with about three dozen piercing chartreuse eyes. “I didn’t even know a potion could do that.”

            “Maybe we should start with something basic,” said Potter helplessly. “Like a water potion.”

            The corner of Draco’s mouth curved up. “You’d just set it on fire.” He looked back down at the potion, because looking at Potter, who was flushed and sweating a little from the fire under his cauldron, was making him sweat a little too. “Let’s get rid of this… abomination, and start over.” And just because: “I know you can do this.”

            The cancerous pile of Potter smiles in his chest continued to grow. It was probably malignant, because Draco was doomed; doomed, and also smiling.

 

            “Ugh,” said Snape when he walked into the room and saw Draco smiling. “Stop that.”  He glanced in the cauldron at what was, incidentally, shooting glances at him. “And vanish that thing before I have to name it.”

 

            “I wonder what he would have named it,” Potter mused later, throwing himself on the grass, facing down the slope toward the lake. Draco made a quick check for pinecones, and seeing none, did the same.

            “Probably something dire, like Beelzebub, or Andromeda.”

            “I doubt he’d name it after your aunt, Draco.”

            “Oh. Right.”

            “At least I got the potion right. I mean, eventually.”

            “If by ‘got it right’ you mean ‘didn’t accidentally create sentient and probably evil life in a cauldron,’ then yes. Well done, Potty.” Potter shoved at him a little, laughing, and Draco shoved him back.

            “You know I did that potion perfectly, and it was all because of you, you swot.” Draco said nothing, smirking in great satisfaction, both at Potter’s delight, and at the memory of Snape’s profound annoyance and the resulting parade of house elves bearing gin.

            There was a silence that stretched between them then, as the breeze bent the long grass at the lake’s edge to white and back to green again, and Draco heard Potter sigh. He turned to look at him.

            Potter had taken off his glasses and thrown them a short distance away, and had his eyes closed. He wasn’t smiling, but Draco could tell simply by looking at him that he was happy. And this made Draco… sad?

            Overwhelmed, perhaps. Overcome. He felt something that was like being thirsty, but he wasn’t thirsty at all. A few moments looking at the man and he felt like he was trapped in his own skin, and it was getting too tight.

            Draco stood up and walked away when he realized what it was.

            “Hey!” Potter opened his eyes and sat up. “Where are you going?” Draco heard him stand, and he broke into a run. He got a good twenty metres in before Potter tackled him around the waist and they both went down hard. Draco felt the wind go out of him and it was just like old times. He twisted around and shot out a fist, clipping Potter on the jaw, and then he was on top of him, winding back his arm, and Harry stared up at him, with hurt and disbelief in his eyes, and he felt his arm drop.

            “Whatever I did, I’m sorry,” Potter said in a ragged voice that caught on Draco’s nerve endings. “Just tell me, and I won’t do it again.”

            “It’s not you,” Draco said quietly, and tugged uselessly on the front of Potter’s shirt before getting up. “It’s me.”

            “I don’t understand!” Potter shouted then. “Please,” he added more quietly. “Don’t go.”

            “It’s wrong!” Draco burst out. “It’s not enough, and it’s wrong.”

            “What’s wrong? Tell me, we can work it out –“

            “It’s wrong because I--.” Draco said, and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. He exhaled heavily, and ran his hands over his face. “I can’t reconcile the two of you.”

            “The two of me?”

            “Yes! The little you—“ Draco shot out his hand and waggled it in the general direction of Potter’s knees – “And _you_ you.” He looked up at Potter.

            Potter just stared at him.

            “What?” He spat irritably.

            “Draco,” Potter said, with a bit more incredulousness than necessary, “they’re both me. Did you think that when Hermione got me all fixed up I’d just forget you? Everything you’d shown me? Everything you were to me?”

            “Oh. That’s. I… That’s good to know.”

            “But it’s not as if I want to reenact some sort of bizarre mentor-child relationship with you.” Here Draco breathed a sigh of relief. “I want to be your friend. You said you were my friend back then, and whether or not you meant it at the time, I want it. I really want it. And anyway, I think you did mean it.”

            Draco scrutinized him. Potter didn’t seem to be mocking him, or trying to placate someone he’d just rejected. Then again, Draco hadn’t been too clear on that point, although that was mainly because “I want to shag you in epic ways, but I’m still weirded out by having just babysat you for months, and hating your guts for a decade or so before that” was difficult to phrase tactfully. At least, tactful in a way that Potter would understand.

            “Friends,” Draco said at last, with the corner of his mouth twisted wryly, because he couldn’t think of anything cleverer to say. It was a distressing turn of events, and if all this hanging about with Potter was going to dull his rapier wit, Draco might be forced to take drastic measures.

            As soon as he figured out what they were. Damn.

 

            “A cockatrice. Really. _Really.”_ Draco was striding as fast as possible without running, and Potter was attempting to keep pace with him. “I am going to kill that man.”

            “But Hagrid says they’re harmless!”

            “Hagrid is a _giant._ What would give him a nip on the finger would take your arm off. Let us never forget what kind of student safety record that chap has.” Draco noticed that Potter’s eyes drifted to the long white scar on his forearm, but said nothing.

            “Does he even know what a cockatrice can do?”

            “I do. If he doesn’t, he should be fired.”

            “But—“

            “Feel free to object when you’re petrified into a nice, cold, granite statue.” They were almost to the courtyard now, and Draco stopped, pulling Potter into an alcove. He’d been wanting to pull him into an alcove for some time now, albeit under very different circumstances, but it was nice all the same. Potter had to press very close to him, as it was a rather small alcove, and Draco could feel his breath on his neck. He attempted to focus.

            “Is there anything in your Defense lesson plans about cockatrices? You can speak to them, right? They’re half snake.”

            “Yes, but it’s the wrong half.” Potter pointed, and in the distance Draco could make out the creature. The back half was indeed all snake, but somewhere along the middle it became rooster. It cackled to itself and pecked at something on the lawn.

            “So, anything resembling a plan?”

            “Ummmm,” Potter said, then fell quiet.

            “I hate to mention this,” Potter said after a long pause, and he sounded much chagrined. “But your animagus form --“

            “Is _not_ a weasel!” And then, “You _know about that?!”_

            “—Is the only creature immune to the deadly gaze of the cockatrice.”

            Draco was horrified. “You’re going to make me go out there alone?”

            Potter shook his head, and his check brushed Draco’s. “Mn-mm. I’ll be there with you. I’ll just have a temporary blinding spell on.”

            “Even better,” Draco snapped. “The blond leading the blind.”

            “Did you just insult yourself?” Potter looked at him askance, and Draco blushed even harder, if at all possible.

            “Shut up. This is a terrible idea. I always knew you would be the death of me.”

            Potter turned to face him then, grabbing him by the shoulders and turning the smoldering intensity of his gaze on him. “You are not going to die,” he said firmly. “I won’t allow it.”

            Draco knew he should probably have been listening, but he was far too distracted. Potter was a force of nature when facing danger. He was in his element and he looked blazingly alive, his eyes glowing like a curse, and Draco was transfixed. He could practically smell the courage in Potter’s sweat. Draco bit his lip to keep himself from whining; he was fairly certain that he’d never been this terrified or this turned on in his life. It was rather confusing.

            Potter’s hands gripped him less tightly, seeming as distracted as Draco was feeling at the moment. He licked his lips. Draco’s eyes widened in the low light to catch every frame of this movement, and he became aware that Potter’s thumb had gone from gripping to rubbing gently against Draco’s arm through his robes.

            The cockatrice crowed, sounding much nearer than it had previously, and they both jumped. Potter leaned back again, bringing his wand up to his eyes. “All right, here goes nothing.” And indeed, moments later, Potter seemed to be staring at nothing. “Are you changed yet?”

            “No, just give me a minute.”

            Draco took a deep breath. It was bad enough that his Patronus was a polecat, and that his Animagus form was a weasel, but it was another thing to have anyone else know. And how Potter had known this was a very good question. Still, there was something flattering about being the only person for the job. His destiny was ferret-shaped.

            It wasn’t a terribly pleasant process, but the end result was always a bit liberating. Draco-the-weasel twined around Potter’s feet until Potter picked him up and deposited him on his shoulders.

            “Okay, squeak once if I need to head right, twice if I need to go left, and go crazy if I run into a horrible monster.”

            _Can do,_ thought Draco. He felt justified in his mortal fear. After all, he was clinging to a staggering blind man, approaching a mythical beast that could kill them in three equally unpleasant ways, which he supposed was par for the course of being one of the heroic types. Draco was none of those types, as far as he could tell, and only barely restrained himself from shitting all over Potter’s robes, because, should he live to tell the tale, that would _definitely_ not be part of it.

            “Are we close?” Potter whispered. Draco did a weasel-y dance of terror. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

            The cockatrice was not a slavering beast, as many dangerous things seemed inclined to be. It looked more fastidious than anything. It pecked briskly at hidden things in the lawn, with its shiny, scaled tail draped demurely around it. It cocked its head coyly at the two of them with a flounce of its crest. Then it threw its head back and gave a bloodcurdling shriek.

            Draco did his best to scramble down the back of Potter’s robes, which caused Potter to scream, which set the cockatrice to shrieking even louder and throwing in an outraged gargle at the end of its shrieks. At this point Draco couldn’t see anything that was going on, as it was rather dark and nice-smelling in the back of Potter’s shirt, which, as it happened, was tucked into his trousers. But now Potter was running and scrabbling at his back, and casting Stunners at the beast, and Draco figured that his work here was done.

            One of Potter’s Stunners connected and knocked the creature arse over tea kettle, and Potter ran toward the sound, failing to see – or miss – the thick tail on the ground, resulting in Potter (and Draco by extension) in a very compromising position with a very deadly and very stupid beast which was, fortunately, also unconscious.

            “It’s safe now, I think. Go on and change back.” Draco scampered a few meters away and transformed into his usual shape. Potter stood and dusted off his clothes.

            “Potter,” Draco began to say, just as the cockatrice began to stir. Potter hadn’t taken off the stupid blindness spell, and could not see Draco pointing behind him. Where was his wand, damn it?! It had to be in one of his pockets. He cast about in his robes for for a moment, before realizing that he was completely starkers and his clothes were back in the cozy little alcove where he and Potter should have been snogging right about now. Buggery. “Potter, get out of here. Now. Please.” Potter had his eyesight back, and he was using it in what would otherwise be a perfectly acceptable way, had he not been in mortal peril. Even so, Draco found his blushing to be charming, but he felt that his nudity was working against him in terms of conveying said peril to the one in it. “Potter, you idiot, _run!”_

Potter must have sensed his immanent demise, as he stood rooted to the spot, his face that of a man who might suddenly need clean pants.




            “Protego!” Draco shouted, his hand flying out to point at the beast, even though his wand was nowhere in sight. To his surprise, the spell worked, or rather, his wild magic did what he had wanted it to do, more than anything. A shield popped up between Potter and the jet of purple poison, absorbing it. Then the shield formed into a ball and flung itself at the creature, hitting it in the head. It looked nonplussed for a moment, then fell over in a dead faint.

            “Er,” said Potter, eloquent as always.

 

            Draco bound the bird-serpent with one spell, blindfolded it with another, and sealed its beak shut with a borderline Dark spell (which, he felt, wouldn’t be noticed, because hey! He’d just saved the day. He was a _hero_ , and they tended to overlook these things with heroes, as he had learned in his sixth year when Potter had mistakenly believed Draco had always wanted pinstripe skin). The spell had seen its most frequent usage in the late seventies, when it was used to dispel student protests and stop Yoko Ono from singing at a particularly memorable concert in Leeds. No, Draco felt no regret over his surreptitious use of less-than-legal spells. His only regret was that, having had Potter in a nearly ideal alcove scenario, he had failed to make adequate use of it. This was beyond the pale.

            Hagrid made short work of containing the cockatrice, stuffing it in a spell-lined crate, tossing in a sack of cracked corn for the journey, and postmarking it for a remote portion of Wales. Draco presumed (but hoped otherwise) that the intended recipient knew what to do with it.

            “It’s funny,” Draco mused as they saw the package off, hoisted onto a trolley borne by thestrals. “No one seems to like them very much.”

            “Remind yeh of anyone?” Hagrid asked pointedly.

            “No,” he replied absently. He recalled being deeply offended later, when he worked out the answer to Hagrid’s question, which, incidentally, coincided with the thought that he hadn’t seen his father in a while.

 

            “Admit it. Killing Voldemort was a lucky shot.” Draco smirked at a very disillusioned-looking Potter over the rim of his glass.

            Potter knocked back the contents of his own glass with a grimace. “You may well be right. There’s a reason I didn’t take to being an Auror.”

            “Which was?”

            “Unprigbalahuped,” Potter coughed into his fist, looking extremely embarrassed and more than a little forlorn.

            “I didn’t catch that,” Draco signaled for another glass for Potter before leaning in, feeling wickedly amused.

            He cleared his throat. “They said I was… ‘Unpredictably stupid.’”

            “They’re wrong.” Draco said this with such vehemence that Potter looked up at him, hopeful. “You’re predictably stupid. Utterly.” Potter looked betrayed but unsurprised, so Draco went on. “I can set my watch to your stupidity. That’s how predictable it is.”

            “I hate you,” Potter said, accepting the fresh glass of whiskey from the bartender.

            “No you don’t,” Draco said, his amusement growing. When no response came, he added, “In fact, I think it’s rather the opposite.”

            Potter turned distinctly pink, but rolled his eyes. “You think the world can be divided into two classes: those who adore you, and those who haven’t met you yet.”

            “And the Weasel, but I chalk that up to pure jealousy.”

            “If by ‘jealousy’ you mean ‘good sense,’ then yes, and please stop calling my best mate what by rights should be your nickname.” It was Draco’s turn to go pink.

            “I thought we expressly agreed to never speak of that again,” he hissed, his eyes darting around the room to see if any of the bar’s other patrons had heard. Potter snickered. “It’s _not_ funny!”

            “Such angst,” Potter feigned sympathy, which faltered and devolved into a fit of the giggles. “Oh, it kills me.”

            “Not if I kill you first!” Draco felt like he was back in third year, hurling lame threats like that one, especially since he didn’t mean it, and this conversation was not going at all how he’d planned. He felt a strop coming on.

            “Hey, if there’re going to be death threats, you have to take it outside.” The bartender’s tone brooked no argument, so Draco stalked out of the bar, with Potter, who was not a little drunk, giggling quietly behind him.

            “And anyway,” Potter said, a bit too casually, “I lied. The real reason I left the Aurors was because I found out that I didn’t really love chasing the bad guys. It’s what I had thought all along, throughout school and during the war.” He smiled to himself. “Turns out I just liked chasing you.”

            “I stopped being one of the bad – wait, what?” Draco stopped walking, and Potter collided with his back. “Ow.”

            “Sorry.” Potter giggled again, and as Draco turned around, he felt Potter slide into his arms. “But not very.” He nuzzled Draco’s jaw. “You don’t mind, do you?”

            “About the whole being obsessed with me thing, or being a clumsy oaf?”

            “Both.” There was a ghost of a smirk on Potter’s lips, which Draco would not have noticed if they were not so very close, and he realized that Potter was not nearly as drunk as he was pretending to be.

            “Potter, you sly devil,” Draco murmured against those lips, feeling drunk himself. He marveled at how deftly Potter had taken control of the situation, and was delighted that they’d had the same outcome in mind. “You’d have done well in Slytherin.”

            “So you keep telling me.”

            Draco would have replied, simply because this was some of the best banter he’d had all year, but he was far too busy doing far more important things with his mouth. His evening schedule had filled rather rapidly, not unlike his arms, his mouth, and, er, his pants.

 

            “You were wrong,” Draco announced, not necessarily because he was right, but because he felt it needed to be said. Snape peered out from behind the door to his chambers, disheveled and very cross. “He is not my, hmm… _friend_.”

            “How nice for you. That’s a very lovely bruise on your neck.”

            Draco preened. “Anyway, I’d love to stay and chat, but I have a naked and unbelievably obliging Harry Potter in my bed, and I’m going to shag him until my bits fall off, and then I’m going to cuddle him until I have enough energy to _Reparo_ them, and then do it all over again.”

            “Then what the hell are you doing here?” said Snape, looking like a starving man who’d just been put off his lunch by finding a half-eaten cockroach in it.

            “Oh, nothing much,” Draco waved cheerily to Hermione, who also looked disheveled and rather put off herself. “Just returning the favor.”

            He couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across his face as he took the stairs to his quarters two at a time. The final score: World 1, Draco TEN MILLION.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> AND THEN THEY HAD LOTS OF SEX, THE END.


End file.
